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“There's no fresh start in today's world. Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what you did. Everything we do is collated and quantified. Everything sticks.”

Don’t act surprised that I’m quoting Batman. At WBC, reciting lines from pop culture is par for the course. And why not? The sentiments they express are readily identifiable by the masses – and shifting their meaning is as easy as giving them new context. So put Selina Kyle’s words in a different framework:

In a city in a state in the center of a country lives a group of people who believe they are the center of the universe; they know Right and Wrong, and they are Right. They work hard and go to school and get married and have kids who they take to church and teach that continually protesting the lives, deaths, and daily activities of The World is the only genuine statement of compassion that a God-loving human can sincerely make. As parents, they are attentive and engaged, and the children learn their lessons well.

This is my framework.

Until very recently, this is what I lived, breathed, studied, believed, preached – loudly, daily, and for nearly 27 years.

I never thought it would change. I never wanted it to.

Then suddenly: it did.

And I left.

Where do you go from there?

I don't know, exactly. My sister Grace is with me, though. We’re trying to figure it out together.

There are some things we do know.

We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people. Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so, and regret that hurt.

We know that we dearly love our family. They now consider us betrayers, and we are cut off from their lives, but we know they are well-intentioned. We will never not love them.

We know that we can’t undo our whole lives. We can’t even say we’d want to if we could; we are who we are because of all the experiences that brought us to this point. What we can do is try to find a better way to live from here on. That’s our focus.

Up until now, our names have been synonymous with “God Hates Fags.” Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what we did. We hope Ms. Kyle was right about the other part, too, though – that everything sticks – and that the changes we make in our lives will speak for themselves.

But we are... and let us be the first to tell you about people growing up in brainwashed situations that involve hate to others for being who they are. This woman had no choice but to be in that situation and FINALLY was able to escape when something clicked in her brain. She did the right thing. Sympathy isn't forgiveness, it's feeling sorry for her for being born into that shitfuck family and not knowing better. It's feeling sorry that she has to live the rest of her life with that attached to her when she wasn't the one who created that mess. And truthfully it's feeling sorry that now she has come around and people like you will drag her to hell and back because of a cult she was born into.

And please don't call us faggots... isn't that exactly what you are lambasting her for doing?

You can stop using 'us' because I don't give a fuck about her or her family. Switching over to the lowest common denominator of a decent person doesn't suddenly erase her status as a piece of shit. I'll wait to see where she is in another 23 years

I meant 'us' as a gay person who is not a fan of people calling others faggots.

You fail to see the larger picture here. She didn't create this mess and she was saturated in it since birth. Just like you are stuck to your ideals and morals by your own surroundings growing up. It's how that sadly works. You do thinks everyday that others in other parts of the world hate you for, but you feel it's right because it's how our society has brought us up. You want to say that she should have instantly turned 18 and everything she knew growing up would just go away and she would know what she was doing was wrong... no. Just like in any other cult, people who are born into them take a long time to finally understand what they are doing wrong and how to actually escape... and it probably is 10 times harder when it's your own family.

Forgiveness is something I will wait 20 years to give to her because she does need to sadly earn that with her actions... but sympathy is something I can give to her right now because no one deserved the upbringing she received and she doesn't deserves the amount of hate the rest of her life is going to receive. People like you will pretend that she's still a monster.

Sympathy comes from the fact that this woman had no choice of life growing up, and she will sadly have a terrible life going ahead even though she turned her back on her hateful family.